July 29, 2022
The Camarillo State Mental Hospital was a farm colony that operated from 1936 to 1997. Like many state hospitals active during that time across the country, farm work was considered part of patients’ treatment plans. While the hospital was redeveloped 2002, becoming the California State University Channel Islands, two of the farm Read more…
The Pines Resort in Fallsburg, New York suffered the same fate as other large resorts in the Borscht Belt in the Catskills. The advent of leisure air travel, a well connected interstate system of roads, and the repeated change of ownership has left the once 96-acres dilapidated. On a brief Read more…
June 30, 2022
June 20, 2022
I was overwhelmed with the want to easily explore… as it had been quite some time. I squeezed a trip to Staten Island’s New York Farm Colony on my day off, pushing all other tasks aside for the day. But first a couple of buses. Taking the bus to Staten Read more…
May 9, 2022
Dropping off yet another rental car, I took advantage of being so close to JFK’s rental hub by checking in on my favorite abandoned structure at Fort Tilden, part of the Gateway Recreation Area in the Rockaways, Queens. The enormous structure served as a train garage but hasn’t been in Read more…
May 5, 2022
We never get to stay in the tunnels very long before about-facing and calmly and determinedly walking back towards the light in unison, peering at each other in our peripheral vision. You see, some guy lives in the tunnels and he starts yelling things if your flashlight gets too close Read more…
April 20, 2022
Behold a Futuro House, a pre-fabricated home designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen. It is one of 60 still in existence… out of 96 ever made. These gorgeous midcentury homes have a huge following… and now I am officially way into them. And with about 20 of them in the United Read more…
If I pulled over for every abandoned rural home as I blazed through the farm roads of Texas, I might still be on the road right now. But there is only so much time you can spend in the 95 degree heat inside the disgruntle of straggler residents who are Read more…
April 17, 2022
Santa Rosa’s Sun ‘N Sand Motel is partially collapsed and the remaining rooms are scrapped and their doors remain wide open. Parts of the roof are caved in and at least one wall is wide open to the street. Locals are disturbed about its sad state as it has become Read more…
Part 10 of abandoned ruins along Route 66 is the almost-ghost town of Cuervo, New Mexico. I learned after I returned to New York that this place had a strange lure. 😬
Every exit of Route 66 brought new ruins to explore. A few were on my radar, but others were exciting discoveries… like this structure I am calling Old Man Wilkerson’s in the near-ghost town Newkirk. Just one of many towns that began when a rails came, but ended when the Read more…
As fate would have it, I just happened upon an abandoned church on Easter Sunday after pulling off Route 66 for some snacks at the gas station. So I went to church…
I could have stayed at this site for hours.. with a gas station, food mart, truck repair shop and large restaurant (named “Restaurant”) to peruse, it had a little something for everyone–and, though stripped and ransacked, not a ton of vandalism. It used to be Shell Truck Plaza along Route Read more…
April 16, 2022
One doesn’t have to explore far beyond the exits of Historic Route 66 to find some dynamic decay. This decay, artifacts of a bygone era of car travel, was the reason for my trip to the area. To follow, the first of a lot of decay I wandered through. Starting Read more…
There’s something about the ground’s dry mustard yellow… like an old mangey mutt’s hide. It crunches at each step and if you stand still long enough, a tumbleweed greets your shins. It provided a nice texture accompaniment to the porous, splintered wood. These modular homes, the first decay of many, Read more…
April 7, 2022
Though I often hit the road on my own, it isn’t too long until I start encountering characters who seem placed in my path deliberately, who contribute pleasant tangents of concentrated humanity out of the woodwork in passing. Perhaps it is of my own manifesting, drawing out from the periphery Read more…
In Orange County, New York sits 258 acres of ruin: the once Greycourt Prison, the once Camp Laguardia. Greycourt Prison, built in 1918 by the City of New York, was for women only. The farm colony 90 minutes north of New York City served to provide “physical, mental and moral Read more…
March 19, 2022
When Building 93 was completely vacated in 1996, only 1/3 of the massive 13 floor structure was in use. Like many large psychiatric hospitals, the advent of psychotropic drugs returned many patients back to their homes. It was Chlorpromazine, or Thorazine, that was the first to offer mentally ill patients Read more…
